| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: however, were large and her hands frightful. She wished to be called
Isaure, because among her other oddities and absurdities she had the
taste to repudiate the name of Gaubertin as vulgar. Her eyes were
light and her hair of an undecided color, something like dirty
nankeen. Such as she was, she was taken as a model by a number of
young ladies, who stabbed the skies with their glances, and posed as
angels.
"Well, gentlemen," she said, bowing, "I have some strange news for
you. The gendarmerie have returned."
"Did they make any prisoners?"
"None; the general, it seems, had previously obtained the pardon of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: This why Demetrius said to Nero: "You threaten me with death; it
is Nature who threatens you!"
XLVI
The beginning of philosophy is to know the condition of
one's own mind. If a man recognises that this is in a weakly
state, he will not then want to apply it to questions of the
greatest moment. As it is, men who are not fit to swallow even a
morsel, buy whole treatises and try to devour them. Accordingly
they either vomit them up again, or suffer from indigestion,
whence come gripings, fluxions, and fevers. Whereas they should
have stopped to consider their capacity.
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
